


Noppera-bō

by Matloc



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Abrupt Ending, AkaKuro Week, Gen, Hospitals, Kuroko doesn't have amnesia, it's ok, trash author being trash as usual, wow did this author just ninja edit, yes she did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 18:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3738247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matloc/pseuds/Matloc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing good ever comes from hospitals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noppera-bō

 

Hospitals.

Tetsuya has always hated them. Never once has he received even a modicum of good news from that miserable place. He’s always tried his darnedest to avoid going to one. To him, it is a nexus of tragedies and crushed hopes. Nothing good ever comes out of there.

So when he wakes up to a drab white ceiling, when the nasty odor of disinfectant overpowers his nose, he is less than thrilled, more scared and befuddled. He can’t recall how he got here. He doesn’t even know what day it is. All he knows is that the soft mattress of the hospital bed felt like rocks digging into his spine. He groans and forces himself to sit up, as impossible a task it may be with how unbearably heavy his body feels right now.

A shock of pain bursts through his cranium and he lurches forward with a pained gasp, grabbing his head. Just what on earth happened to him? His head feels like it caved in, because the pressure on the back of his skull makes him dizzy, and he thinks he’s about to puke.

“Tetsuya!” Someone gently pushes him back onto the bed. Tetsuya doesn’t feel nauseous anymore, but the blinding pain takes longer to fade.

“Don’t move too much, Tetsuya. You’re still recovering.” That person reminds him, his tone soft but strict. Tetsuya can’t help but think he’s heard that voice before.

When his vision starts to readjust, he squints wearily at the person who’s now stroking his forehead. But all can make out is a shaky silhouette through the haze.

“I’m glad you are awake. You gave me such a terrible fright, Tetsuya. Never do that again.”

Tetsuya feels a burn in his throat. He thinks it might be guilt, but he’s not too sure when the ache in his bones is enough to convince him that he’s been run over by a tractor.

There’s a moment of relief when he the fog in front of his eyes finally lifts, but it’s immediately crushed when they come into contact with worried red ones.

This man, he’s in his early 20s, and his hair matches his scarlet eyes. He doesn’t look much taller than Tetsuya, but there’s no way to tell when they’re both sitting. This red-haired man must be sick, because his face wears a ghastly mask of pallid, sunken in cheeks, and he looks like he’s never heard of sleep.

But that is not what startles Tetsuya. That is not what makes fear grip at his throat and squeeze painfully, making his words slip out.

“Who are you?”

Tetsuya’s voice is barely a rasp, like he hasn’t spoken in weeks.

The man’s eyes widen. “Tetsuya?”

It is not that the man looks deathly sick, no. It is his voice. It is the same gentle tenor Tetsuya’s heard so many times before. Yet it is also his face. The same red eyes, the same crown of red he’s woken up to so many times before. But there is no way this is possible.

He does not believe what he’s hearing. He cannot believe what he’s seeing. He refuses to believe any of this is real.

There is no way this man is Akashi-kun.

His muscles scream in agony as he jolts up again, but something inside him is telling him to get away from this man. As far as possible. But he can hardly move. All he can do is scoot backwards, clutching at his sheets as if they could serve as a shield.

The man with Akashi’s eyes frowns, “Tetsuya, are you alright?” But still, it’s clear as day that he’s not Akashi.

“W-where is Akashi-kun?” Tetsuya’s eyes flit left and right, trying to find a way to escape.

The only door stands right behind the man in front of him.

He flinches when a hand tries to reach out to him, scurrying back until he’s at the edge of the bed and his back hits the wall. 

_Crap._

“I’m right here, Tetsuya. What’s wrong?” He can hardly believe it. This man—no, he’s not even sure if  _this_  is even a person—is lying right through its teeth. Tetsuya wants to scream at it to stop talking with Akashi’s voice, to stop looking at him with his fiancé’s face.

Then a chilling thought screws his bones rigid. What if this thing has done something to Akashi?

What if this  _thing_  is wearing Akashi’s skin?

Tetsuya's blood runs cold. Is he supposed to be next?

“No…” he gasps, eyes wide. “No. Stay away!”

Whatever this thing in front of him is, it’s getting agitated. Its face twists and then a hand appears in his vision. He scrambles back and knocks his head against the wall, but the panic that sets into his bones blocks any sensation of pain.

He turns on his side to reach the other end of the bed. He needs to get out of here.

There’s only him and  _that_  in the room, and he’ll crawl out of here if he has to.

But that thing is fast, it grabs hold of his arms, locks them in a tight grip.

No, no, no.

A cry escapes his throat as he struggles against his captor. “Tetsuya, calm down! You’ll hurt yourself.” But all Tetsuya hears is the blood rushing through his ears and the screech of his lungs, threatening to burst out of his mouth.

He twists and turns in its hold, trying to jerk his arms away, but the grip remains firm. Tetsuya pants harshly, in desperate gasps of air as though he’s drowning. And his vision, it starts to blur.

No, he needs to run. Tetsuya wills his body to move.

Run.  _Now._

But Tetsuya can’t breathe anymore.

The world instantly fades to black.

* * *

 

Seijuurou feels him relax in his hold. “Tetsuya?” he echoes in concern for the nth time.

There is no response.

Just then, the door behind him opens. “Akashi-san?”

He glances at the man in the white coat standing in the doorway, who’s mirroring his own bewildered expression on a bespectacled face.

* * *

 

The doctor peruses Kuroko Tetsuya’s file with grim composure. He has never actually encountered a case like this before, not in all twelve years of his job. There is nothing distinctive about the patient’s injuries, which makes this even more bizarre.

“No history of mental illness in the family?” he asks just to make sure.

“No.”

He frowns, perturbed by the answer. That doesn’t help at all. All that has been determined about this disorder is that it is prominent amongst people with severe head trauma, but even then it is so rare that less than 100 cases have been documented so far.

He looks up from his file and regards the man before him with a somber expression. His patient’s fiancé wears a sickly pallor on his face, like he has been touched by the shadow of a  _shinigami_  itself.

He exhales through his nose. This is going to be a tough one.

He looks straight into sunken red eyes as he speaks, “Akashi-san,” he starts slowly, making sure that the man is listening to his every word. “I’m afraid Kuroko-san might have developed something known as Capgras Syndrome.”

 

* * *

A clumsy trip of the feet is what marks the end of Seijuurou and Tetsuya’s relationship.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, that’s where it ends. Talk about  ~~lazy writing~~  abrupt endings, ha!
> 
>  **Capgras Delusion/Syndrome**  is a disorder where the person believes one or more of his loved ones have been replaced by impostors. They look the same, act the same, have the same quirks but the person is 100% sure they are impostors. Most commonly occurs in paranoid schizophrenics and super rare cases of severe brain injury.
> 
> Your brain has the function to basically connect faces you see everyday to a mental database of identities of all the people you have ever met in your life or know about. That is how you can tell that the woman sleeping next to is your wife and not your octogenarian neighbor who sometimes smells like Cajun beans and nappies. 
> 
> So every time you see someone you know, your brain updates its databases and cross references with it so it can tell you that the person who looks and acts like ‘that one girl from Ipanema’ really  _is_  ‘that one girl from Ipanema’.
> 
> Now, when you develop Capgras Syndrome, the part of your brain responsible for that function either shuts down or gets damaged to the point that it cannot form the connection anymore. You can perceive that yes, the woman sleeping next to you shares the same features as your wife, the face of your wife is crystal clear in your memories even, but your damaged brain can’t form the final link that connects your observation to the mental data files you have on your wife.
> 
> Basically the identifier part of your brain is stuck in the past (before the delusion) and afterwards when you see your SO/friend/relative again, your brain can’t update itself so you come to the conclusion that they’re clearly an impostor.
> 
> Amnesia is hard to pull off so I took the cheap way out. /sob


End file.
